The journals of Walter Edward
White written during 1903-1906 tells a unique but not uncommon story.
Born
the grandson of prominent politician and international ship's captain Hon.
Edward White Sr. and his wife Anne Weir, young Walter enjoys the
family passion for experimental agriculture in an unlikely
environment.
He develops his passion for Methodism and Christian service, meets his future wife Edith Knight, and enters the world of the Water
Street
merchants as a clerk in St. John's, Newfoundland.

Walter's
father, Edward White Jr.
continues many family activities - gaining election to the House of
Assembly
- becoming a sealing Captain - maintaining mercantile operations in St.
John's. The family lived on the
South Side of the harbour
in a two family house (duplex) called the
New House built for Edward Jr. and his brother
Richard,
by their father Edward Sr. His mother was Emma
Jane Bemister.

When Walter was fifteen his father
provided
him an offer to start work as an apprentice druggist for five years
when
his father would start him in his own shop or become a lawyer,
intimidated
by the court system, he chose pharmacy. "I had to
start
work at 7 every morning and work til 11 PM every night except Sundays
when
we opened at 10 AM - salary $80 a year - not quite $ 7 a month".
After six months in the druggist trade Walter chose to return to school.

Employed in 1903 withBowring Brothers & Co a large Water St. "importer" as merchants
were called. He worked as a clerk in the hardware department of
what
became the largest department store in the colonial city.

After becoming manager of the hardware
department
he left Bowrings to become a successful Water St. merchant in his own
right
conducting wholesale hardware operations from St. John's as what was
then
called a Manufacturer's Agent. Connected to merchant and sea
captain
families including Bartletts, Bemisters and Howells; his
marriage
to Edith Knight added family ties to Ayers, Steers, Pratts and Pitts
families
which had equally played a significant role in the development of
Newfoundland.

Although much has been written on the
mercantile
life of Water Street in various decades of Newfoundland history,
this slim diary shows the life of a young clerk, the plants he
grows
and harvests on the family summer property - known as the Farm - on the
outskirts of the city in an area then called Brookfield (currently part
of Bowring Park).

Walter visits the residents of the Poor
House as part of his service as a Methodist layman. A Grand Jury
in 1907 found the poor house to be "shamefully'' overcrowded with the
imbecilic, diseased, sick and dying, with no provision for isolation,
treatment
or rehabilitation. The grand jurors concluded that it was the "saddest
place
in Newfoundland''; no one could visit it without feeling "chastised and
dismayed''.

Much of his activities centred around
teaching
Sunday School at George
Street Church,attending Epworth League meetings a Methodist youth
group meetings and the Sons of England a benefit society to assist
needy
Protestants of English extraction and to promote loyalty to the
monarchy.
He enjoyed fishing and hunting within easy traveling distance of home.
His journal tells that he purchased a violin, and a bicycle to assist
his
travels to the farm.

His notes about public activities and
celebrations
as well as the comings and goings of important ships paint a tiny
sketch
of life in a colonial capital at a period of great pride in what had
been
achieved - the railway provided efficient transportation along
with
steam ships - the great trials that Newfoundland would face
financially
and politically and the effect of hugh losses at sea, and in
war,
had not yet tarnished the epic adventure, that is Newfoundland - a
loyal
colony faced with its own reality. Still being transcribed and
edited
the
Journal
of Walter Edward Whiteis now available through HomePort.

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